


passed down like folk songs

by linil



Series: take heart with the day, and begin again [3]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Found Family, Gen, Other, The Silver Trio - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-10
Updated: 2021-01-10
Packaged: 2021-03-14 16:55:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,373
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28674075
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/linil/pseuds/linil
Summary: “I love it,” she says aloud, her voice hushed with awe, and something rigid seeps out of Neville’s spine, Luna’s smile grows even wider. They’d been nervous, she realises. They thought she wouldn’t like it.“I’d love anything you gave me.”
Relationships: Neville Longbottom & Luna Lovegood & Ginny Weasley, Neville Longbottom/Luna Lovegood/Ginny Weasley
Series: take heart with the day, and begin again [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1762309
Comments: 8
Kudos: 30





	passed down like folk songs

**Author's Note:**

> i’ve been trying to write this since before halloween you’d think it would be better than this but you can tell the exact points i lost motivation lmao
> 
> as always jkr can suck my dick
> 
> title from Seven by Taylor Swift

She’s six years old, now. She plays hide and seek with Ron in the garden and giggles when the gnomes gnash their teeth at his clumsy feet. Fred and George take turns letting her on their brooms, whizzing across fields, through trees, looping around the teetering tower of the Burrow. She sneaks into Percy’s room in the evenings, hops up onto his bed and fidgets until he gives in and reads her another story, this one about King Arthur, fished out from beneath another perilous stack of worn paperbacks. Charlie hoists her onto his back and proclaims them Knights of the Round Table, and they go adventuring across the countryside, looking for dragons in streams and on rocky hills. In the middle of the night when she has a bad dream, she climbs into Bill’s bed and crawls under the blanket, and he summons his patronus to dance around her head, the soft glow washing over her closed eyelids until she falls asleep again.

Dad smuggles her steaming hot chocolate in the mornings, laughs when she spills it down her shirt and he spells it clean. Dad brings her tiny muggle trinkets that don’t mean anything: a plastic model of a car, which moves by itself, but only if you pull it back first; a bouncy ball, which she accidentally smacks herself in the forehead with; a rubber duck. 

Mum sits her down for maths lessons and only tuts a little bit when she doesn’t get it, only bites her lips to hide her smile when tiny sparks start flying off her red hair, too young to control it and too entertained to want to try. Mum knits her jumpers that swamp her, hanging over her fingers even with the sleeves rolled up, tells her _you’ll grow into it, love_.

She tells her parents a week or so before Percy, Charlie and Bill leave for Hogwarts. During one of Mum’s writing lessons, at a moment when Dad is using the mugs of tea in his hand as an excuse to loiter and whisper jokes to her when Mum isn’t looking. 

“I’m a girl,” she says. Mum turns away from the blackboard and looks at her. Mum’s face is doing something funny, her mouth is twitching. She fiddles with the pencil in front of her, draws fire coming out of the mouth of a squiggly dragon in the corner of her paper. 

“What do you mean, darling?” She turns to her right and Dad is there, crouched down now so she has to look down at him from her chair. His face is doing something funny, too.

“I’m not a boy. I’m a girl.” She says.

Dad’s still looking at her, then he looks at Mum. Mum’s frowning now, looking back at Dad. She goes back to her dragon, draws a broom underneath it. 

“Are - are you sure, love? You’re a bit young to be thinking about that,” Mum stills the chalk on the board and comes over to her and Dad, and traces her finger gently over the little graphite dragon. 

She writes her name under the dragon, the letters shaky and a bit out of order, and she thinks about it in her head, runs the vowels over her tongue. She rubs her finger over it and it smudges. 

“Yeah.” 

Dad breathes out a sigh, but when she dares to glance up at him he’s smiling. He reaches out a gentle hand and cups her cheek, stretches up to press a kiss to her forehead. “Okay, dear.” 

She looks at Mum, and Mum’s tapping her finger against the smudged name on her paper, biting her lip, her brow furrowed. She’s worried for a second. She doesn’t know what for, because she’s a girl, and that’s it. She doesn’t know what Mum might say. 

But Mum runs her hand through messy red hair and smiles a wobbly smile. “If that’s what you want.” 

_It’s what I am_ , she thinks.

“You’re not a girl.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No, you’re not.”

“Yes, I am.”

“No-“

“I am!”

“How come?”

“Cause I say so.”

“Oh,” Ron frowns and Fred and George grin at each other over his head. “Alright, then.”

“What’s your name then, pipsqueak?” Bill smiles at her, wide and warm.

“Dunno.” 

“What’s wrong with your name?”

“It’s not mine.”

“Why not?”

“It’s wrong.”

“Oh,” Ron frowns a bit less this time, maybe because George has started poking him in the side where he’s ticklish. “Alright.”

“What about Guinevere?” Percy offers.

“Like the King Arthur lady?”

Percy smiles. “Yes, the King Arthur lady.”

Mum snorts. “It’s certainly grandiose enough.”

“You know,” Dad starts, with that tone his voice gets just before he starts rambling, “your great, great aunt was called Gwenhwyfar, which is a derivation of the name Guinevere used in Welsh folklore. It’s quite fascinating, the name varies really quite a lot from region to region! In Cornwall — you know, where aunt Cathy lives — they call her Jenifer, but there’s also Jenelle, Jenna, Guenièvre in French — the Italians call her Ginevra-“

“Ginevra,” Charlie cuts in. “And then you can be Ginny!”

Dad’s still prattling on about names as if he was never interrupted, but she can only see Charlie’s grin, feral and bright, and hear _Ginny_ ringing in her ears.

She likes that.

Ginny.

* * *

For his seventh birthday, his great-uncle Algie announces that he has poisoned the cake mere seconds after he’s already swallowed it, to see if that will shock him into not being a squib. It doesn’t, but it sure feels like magic the way the blood drains instantly from his face and he goes crashing off to the toilet. 

Great-uncle Algie has not, in fact, poisoned the cake. This is little comfort. At least he can still eat the cake.

Gran only tuts and sends him to make some more tea. He thinks she might be disappointed. She usually is.

A few months later, on a day trip to Blackpool, he’s peering over the railing one moment and off the ground, sailing over the bar the next. He has barely a second to wonder if anyone just saw the kid go flying over the side before he crashes flailing into the water, setting his nerves ablaze with the shock of freezing cold. 

Everything is a blur for the next while, time dragging on as he struggles to breech the surface, inhaling a lungful of icy water and spluttering, only for more to come flooding in. The light is dim through the murky water, and then all at once it’s blinding bright as he’s hauled bodily up into the air, choking and gasping and crying. 

He isn’t too sure how much time has actually passed when everything finally comes back into focus around him; that is to say, after coughing up half the Atlantic. There’s a small crowd of people roiling about him, and he vaguely registers great-uncle Algie standing not quite by his side, his face pinched. Beyond the strong hands on his back helping him breathe again there’s another, sharp and frail, cupped against his head, brushing his hair back. The familiar rings slide over his forehead. 

Each time he looks back on this moment, it won’t be the choking fear or the debilitating cold he recalls with the most startling clarity. It will be the way great-uncle Algie and his Gran had looked: worried, maybe a bit panicked.

Disappointed. Always disappointed.

And then finally. _Finally_.

Just shy of nine years old he gets dropped out of a window. 

He hadn’t actually expected great-uncle Algie to drop him. It seems a bit stupid in retrospect, to think a man who pushed him headfirst off a pier in the middle of winter incapable of letting him plummet headfirst out a window. Still, surprise slithers sickeningly through his veins when the grip around his ankles disappears; there’s a heartbeat of stillness, wherein he registers the absence of the only thing keeping him up and tries to comprehend what comes next, and then he’s plunging down, down, down, the ground rushing up to meet him and he squeezes his eyes shut, tears leaking out the corners, he never even —

And then he bounces.

And rises back up. 

And falls back down. 

And bounces.

For the first time in his life, his Gran seems almost proud of him. It’s embarrassing how just the tiniest quirk of her lips, the slightest release of tension in her shoulders, buoys his spirits beyond belief. 

He thinks he may never get a better chance than this.

Gran is pouring cups of tea, great-uncle Algie and his wife out in the living room, and he’s standing by the table watching the way the kettle hovers just above each mug. He fiddles with his fingers, tucks his hands against his chest. He is so rarely brave, but he thinks this once he can try. So he sucks in a breath that stutters down his throat and, as it seems is becoming common, dives in headfirst. 

“Gran,” his voice cracks almost immediately and he cringes back into his shoulders, but she only looks up at him, her brow furrowed the way it always is when she’s about to say something about his appalling posture, but he can’t let her stop him, or he’ll never say it. “Gran, I’m a boy.”

The kettle continues to pour, even as she stills completely, and his mouth opens without any input from his brain. “I-I’m sorry, it’s just, um, I am. And - And I’m sorry if you’re. If you’re disappointed. I know you usually are. With, with me. I just, I wanted to tell you, while you’re not. Not disappointed. Because - because, um, I. I-“

Gran, closer now then she was when he started babbling, sets one bony hand on his shoulder.

“Child,” she starts, voice the same crisp monotone as ever, “You have a responsibility to honour your family’s name. Had you been a squib, that would not be an option, and then would I be disappointed in you,” he flinches away, but her hand is firm against his shoulder, tempered by the strange gentleness of the palm she cradles against his face. “Whether you are a boy or a girl is of no consequence to me, young one,” he thinks she might almost smile then, her face softening in a way he’s never seen. “I ask only that whoever you may be, you remember the weight of your ancestors behind you, and walk your path with honour.” 

He doesn’t know what to do with this nearly-tenderness; it’s something his Gran offers him once in a blue moon, and each time it leaves him reeling. She solves this problem for him by lowering her hand from his cheek to his other shoulder, pushing at them both until he stands a little straighter. Then she asks, voice ringing crystal clear:

“What is your name, boy?”

And he almost bursts into tears.

He hiccups worryingly and sniffs, and, though soft, his voice is even when he says:

“Neville.”

* * *

Luna falls in love with tiny snails with swirling shells, and with wide eyed squirrels that come cautiously closer when beckoned, and with the kneazle that seems to be smiling every time it winds it way between Luna’s legs. 

Luna weaves between trees and down paths worn by centuries of creatures, and seven years of Luna. The way is marked by the dull jingle of overstuffed pockets laden with fascinating rocks, a small jam jar of elderflower cordial Dad made, a braided cord of old and new strings alike. Gifts for the leshy in the looming oak tree in a grassy clearing. They clatter softly to the ground and Luna lays them down against the oak’s trunk, twisting the lid off the jar and grinning when the breeze catches on golden hair and rustles leaves in the boughs high above.

Only then does Luna begin to gather the mushrooms at the base of the tree, boletes and then, further out in the field, parasols. The sky is a hazy blue, the sun yet to rise, and the grass is still damp with morning dew. There’s a circle of toadstools at the border between the clearing and the woods, and Luna drops a lemon sherbet in the centre, then turns and heads for home, pockets now filled to the brim with mushrooms and carrying as many as possible. Some still tumble away.

The sun is just cresting the horizon when Luna skips back into the kitchen, warm rays of light streaming in and flooding the room in shades of honey. Luna knows Mum and Dad won’t be awake for a while yet, so instead starts in on the small mountain of treasure gathered from the woods, snapping the stems off the parasols and then tossing the caps and the boletes into the colander to wash.

Luna sets them all down on the kitchen table, just about able to peer over the top, and smiles sunnily when the footstool comes wandering in from the hallway, stepping up onto it as soon as it’s stilled. Luna slices the boletes from top to bottom, and rips apart the parasols too big to cut outright, feeling the flesh give easily in small hands, dwarfed against the knife. Then it’s all tipped into a saucepan and set on the hob, already sizzling gleefully away.

There are footsteps in the corridor, then, and when Luna twists, still trying to keep a steady grip on the pan handle, Mum is shuffling in through the kitchen door. She rubs her eyes and beams at Luna when she notices the mushrooms frying on the stove.

She brushes a gentle hand over Luna’s head on her way to the fridge, rummaging around for the bacon with one hand and fishing for her wand in her pocket with the other. She plucks four eggs out of the carton and gestures with her wand at the cupboard, prompting a frying pan to float out and set itself on the hob in front of Luna, the sunflower oil already uncapping and dolloping onto it. She comes to stand by Luna and lays strips of bacon in the pan and cracks the eggs in alongside them. They bubble and pop up at Luna, still stirring the mushrooms.

The sun has completely risen by the time Dad wanders in, attention mostly on the Quibbler in his hand, but then he sets it down on the table and presses a kiss to Luna’s forehead, to Mum’s cheek, and spells the kettle on.

Luna and Mum set their plates down, loaded with food, and Dad adds toast to each, and a cup of steaming tea beside them. Then, together, they sit down at the kitchen table.

Dad hands them each a knife and fork, then settles into his chair and smiles softly. “Which pronouns today, sweetheart?”

Luna hums, and thinks about it for a minute, chews the foraged mushrooms and sips at the chamomile. 

“‘He’, right now,” Luna says, and Mum and Dad smile at him, and start on their breakfast. 

The morning of Samhain arrives with a hanging fog, making the woods seem lonelier than usual when Luna goes quietly down the path, worn by centuries of creatures and ten years of Luna. There aren’t as many parasols now, the season practically over, but the boletes are still thick around the leshy’s oak, taken up and replaced with an unwrapped chocolate bar and an origami butterfly Luna folded.

The circle of toadstools is still there on the boundary, and today Luna has gifts for the Aos Sí: two tea cakes from the baker in town, who always sneaks a biscuit into the bag when Luna goes to buy bread; and another jar, this time larger and containing mulled wine, made together with Dad last night, set down and opened. All of these are laid within the circle, careful fingers curling back into frail palms rather than brushing the toadstools. 

When Luna straightens up and turns around, there’s a skeletal black horse on the edge of the clearing, another just behind it. Long, tattered wings fold out from their backs, resplendent in their deterioration, and the first horse barely spares Luna a glance before it leaps, twirling elegantly up into the sky like a black wisp of smoke.

The second takes a longer look. It doesn’t spook when Luna tiptoes closer, not even when Luna reaches up, up, to whisper fingertips feather-light over its neck. The horse is smoother than expected, not quite as leathery as it appears from a distance, but the stretched skin across its wings is exactly as Luna had seen. The horse stares a moment longer, then backs away a few metres and turns, runs, jumps up after the first horse. 

Luna watches the thestrals soar away until the treetops obscure them, and still stands there for a long while afterwards.

At sunset, they sit down at the table, dinner spread out before them. There are three places set; only two occupied, as far as anyone can see. 

Dad smiles though, still serves them food — Luna, himself, and the plate set out for Mum. 

“What’ll it be tonight, my dear?” He asks, as he always has, as he always does.

Luna takes a bite of colcannon, taps vacantly against the warm wood of the table, stares at the empty space opposite. 

“I’m not sure yet,” Luna says.

* * *

Ginny is still breathless with the exhilaration of winning — her first professional game and she _won_ — as she walks out of the changing rooms and straight into Luna’s outstretched arms.

“Ginny!” A smiling voice yells somewhere above her ear, and then soft arms are engulfing her and Luna as Neville crashes into them. Luna’s face ends up squished against Ginny’s collarbone, Neville’s pressed against the crown of her head. She can feel their smiles against her skin, and she hides her own in Luna’s hair. 

“I’m still sweaty, get off,” she wriggles half-heartedly in their holds, but Neville just squeezes tighter.

“You won! You won, you won, you were _amazing_ , Ginny!” Neville shakes them both and Luna laughs, bright and clear.

“You were,” Ginny glances down at Luna, meeting their sharp blue eyes, softened by the smile stretched wide beneath them. “We spent the whole game looking at you.”

That punches a laugh out of her. She stops her useless attempts to escape and worms her arms up around the two of them, doing her best to crush them even further against her. “You didn’t even enjoy the game then.”

“Of course we did,” Neville mumbles, “it’s always a joy to watch you.” 

Ginny wants to shove him for being such a sap. She pulls him tighter instead, until he’s complaining about bruised ribs. Luna laughs, light and bright. 

“Come on now, Ginny, we can’t show you your surprise if you keep smothering him like that,” Luna dusts a kiss against Ginny’s freckled cheek, and then twists inelegantly out of her grip, stumbling slightly before straightening up with a dazzling grin, eyes crinkled with self satisfied pride. 

“Surprise?” Ginny’s smiling already, powerless in the face of their bubbling happiness. 

She can feel Neville’s chest expand against her shoulder, and when she turns to look at him his mouth is half open, on the verge of speaking.

But then the rest of her family are bursting through the door, shouting and laughing over each other as they catch sight of Ginny. Mum and Dad, Ron, Harry, Hermione, Percy, George, Charlie, Bill and Fleur, all of them tumbling down the corridor to smother her with their excitement. 

Whatever Neville was going to say is lost to the uproar, and Ginny forgets for the time.

She remembers again later, tumbling out of the three broomsticks much, much drunker than she was when she entered. She’s still flushed with adrenaline, giddy on the high of winning. It still feels like her feet are off the ground, her stomach keeps lurching like she’s about to dive. 

There’s a familiar cacophony of voices. Neville laughs low and quiet behind her, and when she turns Luna is beaming up at him. 

Then she remembers what they had said earlier; something about a surprise. 

Mum and Dad pull her into another hug before they go, scattering kisses across her face and hair even as she tries to squirm away. Her hands betray her, curling tight into their coats. 

Slowly her family trickles home around her, until it’s just her and Neville and Luna outside the pub, leaning into each other’s shoulders and giggling into each other’s necks. Neville’s still upright, if a little wobbly, and Luna’s wedged between him and Ginny, their arms tangled together.

“What’s this surprise, then?” Ginny asks. Neville looks blankly back at her until Luna slaps gently at his shoulder and tumbles into him, whispering something in his ear with a giggle. Then, his face lights up, and Luna sticks a hand into his coat pocket, rummaging around for a second before yanking it back out, something held gingerly in the confines of their fist. Light leaks out between their fingers.

“Wait, wait.” Neville reaches around Luna and presses his palm over Ginny’s eyes, almost poking them out in the process. She yelps and brings her own hands up to try and yank his off, but he’s insistent now, giggling along with Luna.

Then one of them fishes a wand out from their pocket and murmurs a spell too quiet for Ginny to hear over their giddy laughter. She’s still groping half-heartedly at Neville’s hand, when she’s hit suddenly with a burst of warmth, like the fire Dad no doubt has going in the hearth at home by now. It smells like sulphur — she can taste it on her tongue. 

There’s a tiny roar.

She finally pries Neville’s fingers off her eyes, and forgets to let go when she sees what’s sitting in the cradle of Luna’s hands.

The dragon is small, so small, barely bigger than Luna’s palm, and it’s skin seems to diffract the soft light from the streetlamp above them like a gem. It skitters across their skin, scattering green rays of light that hit Ginny’s chest, Neville’s forearm, Luna’s forehead, tiny clawed wings hooking around their fingers, nipping gently at their nails. Luna tilts their hands up and the dragon climbs to the mountain peak of their fingers, sucks a breath in, and exhales a thin burst of golden flames. Ginny’s hand, raised tentatively to touch, jolts instinctively back when fire splashes across her knuckles. But it’s only warm where it brushes across her skin.

It’s a common welsh green, she realises after the initial shock of it fades. She remembers Charlie telling her, when they were romping through fields on their dragon quests, that it was the only one they really had a chance of finding without leaving the country, never mind that Wales was miles away.

“Where did you get that?” She whispers. In the hushed quiet of the night, in the face of a tiny wonder like this, she wants to whisper.

Neville beams. “It’s actually not really a dragon!” Luna fishes their wand out, then points it at the dragon. It turns its snout up towards the wood, curious even as Luna casts the spell again and magic sparks from the tip. 

It touches their wand softly with its nose, just before its skin begins to shift, rippling with the wave of Luna’s magic. It folds in on itself, curling up into a ball and tucking its snout and tail under its wings. It goes still, as if sleeping, and then somehow it stills even more. Its ridges and hollows smooth over, the texture of its scales becomes less and less pronounced until they’re not there at all. 

In a few seconds, the tiny dragon in Luna’s palm has been replaced with a round green gemstone. 

“It’s called, uh, Maw Sit Sit?” Luna nods. “Maw Sit Sit. Great-Aunt Enid said she found it in the attic.” Luna runs the pad of their thumb over the smooth surface of the stone, and the light seems to catch on it for a second as it jostles in their palm. “Great-Uncle Algie said he won it off some guy in a pub in Kazakhstan, but he was also sort of drunk when he was telling me so I’m not sure if he was lying or not.” Neville’s voice lowers, tapering off as he mumbles something about whiskey and it’s questionable effects on great-uncles. Luna smiles at him and reaches out their free hand to tangle with one of Ginny’s, lifting it up and pressing the stone into her open palm. 

“Neville wanted to enchant it,” they smile and raise their wand over the stone again. “So we spent the last month figuring out what we could do to it. Mcgonagall suggested it in the end. She caught us trying to charm it into catching fire on command and took pity.” They murmur the spell again, and then as gradually as it disappeared the dragon returns. Ginny doesn’t shy away this time, and the dragon presses its nose up against her fingers when she reaches out to stroke it. 

She loves it. 

“I love it,” she says aloud, her voice hushed with awe, and something rigid seeps out of Neville’s spine, Luna’s smile grows even wider. They’d been nervous, she realises. They thought she wouldn’t like it.

“I’d love anything you gave me.” 

Luna stretches up onto their toes and swats her over the head, but she can see the warm quirk of their mouth, the excruciating fondness in the way Neville ruffles her hair. 

She mouths the incantation to herself and huddles the tiny stone dragon close to her chest, feeling its heat radiating out into her ribs, lungs, heart.

* * *

Neville isn’t really expecting it when Ginny bursts into the greenhouse one afternoon.

It’s a Hogsmeade weekend, so he’s not worried about anyone coming in unless some enthusiastic younger years want to poke about at the flitterbloom again. It snakes its way up Neville’s bare forearm when he reaches out to it, his sleeves pushed up to his elbows.

“Nev? You in here?”

He startles hard enough that the flitterbloom almost topples over, yanked along with his arm when he flinches violently; its vine shrinks back and Neville whirls around, one hand already clutching his wand.

It’s just Ginny. He hadn’t even noticed he was holding his breath until it whooshes out of him. 

“Ginny!” His voice shakes horribly, cracks half way through even, but the giddy excitement that laces her name is still embarrassingly obvious. Ginny doesn’t acknowledge it, though, just darts around pots and benches overflowing with greenery until she’s close enough to drag Neville into a crushing hug. The bright red of her hair glows surrounded by all the plants, offset by hundred of hues of jade and moss. 

“Hey, Neville,” she murmurs into his shoulder, and he presses a smile against her cheek. 

“Hey, Ginny,” her arms tighten around his waist before she steps back, beaming up at him. “What’re you doing here?” That sounds rude. “Not that I’m not happy to see you — I am!” he rushes to say. “It’s just that, you don’t usually come on Saturdays, and uh, I wasn’t expecting you. I could’ve got something from the kitchen,” he trails off into mumbles when he realises he’s rambling, but Ginny doesn’t seem to notice his floundering, just grins wider and pulls him into another hug, looser this time. 

“It’s alright Nev, me and Luna just wanted to see you, is all,” she leans around him to look out the wall at the grounds, the lake stretching off in the distance. “Luna said he was feeling claustrophobic today; he wanted to get somewhere open.” Sure enough, when Neville looks closer at the bank of the Great Lake he sees a figure perched by the shore, catches a glimpse of reflected sunlight dancing off white hair. 

“Oh. Oh!” Ginny starts tugging him by his elbow towards the door, manoeuvring him around trailing vines and scattered pots. “Does he not want to come in?” She shakes her head, and Neville nods, bites the inside of his mouth instead of trying to give voice to the tight bundle of worry in his chest. 

But Ginny’s still got that small sweet smile on her face, like an afterthought, so he lets the nerves building in his stomach dissipate. 

A pair of younger years dash across the lawn as Ginny and Neville leave the greenhouse, tripping over clumps of grass and each other. They spare a glance for the two of them, smiling at Neville, and one of them falters for a second and does a double take when they see Ginny, but the other one snags their wrist and they launch into motion again, their laughter trailing behind them.

Luna’s crouched down at the water’s edge, swirling the water idly with his hand, when Ginny and Neville draw closer. He looks up at them when Ginny’s shadow falls across his face and grins, teeth and gums and all. 

“Neville!” He springs to his feet and tosses his arms around Neville’s neck. His fingertips are cool from the water, cradled against his skin. 

“Luna!” Neville beams and pulls him in tight to his chest, arms looped under Luna’s and chin propped on top of his head. Luna tries to squirm away, but Neville just holds tighter and grins along as he giggles and shoves at Neville’s chest. 

“Sorry, Luna, it’s your own fault for being short,” he says, and chuckles even as Luna finally manages to wrench himself out of Neville’s hug trap. 

“You’re a menace, Neville Longbottom,” he gripes, but the pout on his face is at odds with the way he snags Neville’s hand, then Ginny’s, and tugs them both down to sit by the water again. He’s not as close today, not wedged up against Ginny and Neville, instead he sits just before them, yanks his shoes and socks off and sticks his feet in the water; trusts the two of them to watch his back without ever having to acknowledge that’s what he’s doing.

“Careful there, Luna — the Grindylows are gonna chomp your feet off,” Ginny teases, and Luna whips his head around just to glare at the shameless smirk on her face.

“Shut it, the squid wouldn’t let them,” Neville says. Luna grins and turns back to the lake, drawing patterns in the water with his toes and calling gently for the Giant Squid every few minutes. 

Neville watches him for a while. He knows whatever expression he must be making will only make Ginny laugh at him. He has no doubt she looks just the same, but if he turns to check she’ll notice the besotted smile on his face. He’s just glad the older years aren’t around to see this: they’d bully him even more than usual. 

_Small mercies_ , he thinks, as he leans back on his elbows.

One large tentacle tentatively breaches the surface of the water, and Luna crows in delight, just as Ginny nudges Neville in the side. 

“Hm?” He tears his eyes away from the lake to look at her. He must still be smiling — it honestly might have grown with how his cheeks are starting to ache — because she cackles and jabs him in the cheek. 

“Oi!” He tries to bat her arm away when she pokes him again — other cheek, forehead, chin, almost right in his eye — but she’s got better reflexes. His final defence is to flop over onto his stomach, face smushed against her thigh where she can’t get at it. She still pokes his head again, and again, and then ruffles his hair hard enough that it rattles his whole skull. 

He feels dazed when he rolls back over, but her hand doesn’t leave his head, just keeps messing with strands of hair, fingers rough and calloused against his skin. Her hair glows bright in the afternoon sunlight, burning embers framing her face.

“Mum says you should come visit, soon,” she says after a long moment, laced with the exuberant sounds of the younger years skittering about and Luna cooing softly at the Giant Squid in the background. 

“That’d be nice,” he says. “Haven’t seen everyone in a while. I miss your dad’s hot chocolate.”

“Well if you weren’t messing around with plants all the time, maybe you could come have some.”

He grins and mumbles, “you love my plants. You’re the ones who’re always coming here.”

She sighs, and it sounds exasperated and for a second anxiety bubbles up in Neville’s stomach; but then she’s smiling. “Yeah, Nev, we love your plants.” It sounds like a joke; the way her eyes crinkle looks like a secret. 

He grins giddily back. “They love you more.”

Ginny’s laugh rumbles in her chest, and then across the skin of Neville’s cheek when she leans down to kiss it, the tingling buzz of it lingering long after she pulls back.

“It’s the end of term soon, right?” He nods. “We’ll come pick you up from King’s Cross,” Her smile curves slowly across her face; this looks like a secret, too. “Whisk you away. You can have all the hot chocolate you want back home.” 

“Can’t wait,” he thinks he can already taste it.

“Are you two being mushy, again?” Luna’s face pops into view above Neville. He looks soggier than before. 

“Shut up, as if you’re not worse than both of us,” Ginny grumbles, but she doesn’t complain when Luna sticks a flower behind her ear, a dandelion he pulled up from somewhere. 

“Are you feeling up to going to the greenhouse, Luna?” Neville says, obligingly lets Luna set a daisy chain on his head. “The flitterbloom misses you.”

“Oh, really?” Ginny grins and tugs gently at a strand of hair.

“Mhm. It keeps reaching out for the door,” he stretches his hand up towards the sky. “‘Ginny! Luna!’” His voice pitches high, thin and reedy, enough to make Luna smile along with him. “It’s really quite sad; you ought to put it out of its misery.”

“Well, can’t say no to that, can we, Gin?” 

“Certainly can’t.”

He wasn’t lying about the flitterbloom. It loves the two of them even more than it loves him. 

Traitor. He can’t blame it.

* * *

Luna tumbles through the fireplace at the Burrow on Christmas day, into a flurry of activity.

Ginny’s there, lounging across the squishy armchair by the hearth. She’s already on her feet when the fire roars and splutters green embers onto the carpet along with Luna, and sweeps her up into a hug before she even has the chance to get her feet under her. 

“Luna!” Her cheek is mashed against Ginny’s collarbone, but she can still hear the grin in Ginny’s voice.

“Merry Christmas, Gin,” Luna says and wriggles around in her grip until she can stretch up onto her tiptoes and kiss her cheek. Ginny laughs and kisses her forehead in return.

“Merry Christmas,” she says lowly against Luna’s skin. 

There’s a clatter from the kitchen and then a voice calling, “is that Luna?” 

“‘She’,” Luna says to Ginny’s raised eyebrow, before shouting back into the kitchen. 

“Yeah, she just got here!” 

Ron’s head pops around the doorframe, and he grins when he catches sight of her. 

“Hey, Luna, good to see you,” he says, coming out of the kitchen to wrap her in another all engulfing hug, lanky limbs easily spanning the breadth of her shoulders. 

“Hello, Ron. Are Harry and Hermione already here?”

His smile widens. “Yeah, Mum roped Harry into helping with the cooking,” he shakes his head. “We tried to tell him he doesn’t actually have to, but he’s such a stubborn fucker sometimes,” he relinquishes his hold on Luna and turns to head back into the kitchen. “I’m making hot chocolate if you want any!” He calls over his shoulder.

Luna nods enthusiastically and Ginny laughs. “That would be great!” She answers for both of them, then turns back to Luna. “Hermione’s upstairs. Think she was talking to Bill and Fleur about something,” she says, “and the others are around, somewhere. We can try and find Charlie, if you want?”

Luna shakes her head. “I can talk to him later. Neville said he’ll be here in a bit,” she catches Ginny’s elbow and loops her arm around it, beaming up at her.

“That’s good. Mum and Dad can start pestering you instead of me,” Ginny’s smile turns conspiratorial, and she curls in towards her like she doesn’t even have to think about it. The corners of her mouth twitch upwards. “Think they like you two better than me.” 

Luna hums around her smile. “You’re like a sunflower.”

Ginny pauses, then laughs, loud and throaty. “Alright, no need for that. Just ‘cause I’m ginger.” She nudges Luna with her elbow. “C’mon, let’s go find Dad; he’s been asking when you’ll be here, all morning.”

Ginny’s room looks just the same as it always has to Luna. The same posters, the same overstuffed drawers and teetering pile of sports magazines on her desk. The same shelf groaning under the weight of dozens of haphazardly stacked books of myths and fairytales.

Luna rests her hands on the windowsill and looks out at the sprawling labyrinth of apple trees outside Ginny’s window. The sun’s gone down by the now, leaving behind the cool colours of dusk to paint the orchard in purples and blues. She sinks into her shoulders and drifts there for a while, Ginny on the bed behind her. 

It’s Percy’s voice rising above the white noise that catches her attention. That, and the whooshing of flames. 

Luna spins on her heel and snags Ginny’s arm as she jumps up from the bed, and then the two of them are careening down the stairs, faster than their legs can take them, into the living room.

Neville’s just stepping out of the fireplace, smiling at Percy and halfway through a greeting, when Luna crashes into him. 

She barely comes up to his shoulder, but she still pushes up onto the balls of her feet and presses a kiss to the underside of his jaw. Her arms settle around his waist, her smile against the hollow of his throat. 

“Luna!” She thinks Ginny might have been going for admonishing, but the effect is ruined by her laughter and her arms around Neville’s shoulders. She pushes gently at the side of Luna’s head and kisses Neville’s other cheek, his entire face gone deep crimson in the low light. 

“Give him a chance to get in,” Ginny grumbles even as Neville kisses her cheekbone, Luna’s temple.

“I’m seizing the moment.” She pries her face from the warmth of his skin and beams up at him. “Hello, Neville. Merry Christmas.”

“Merry Christmas, Luna, Ginny.”

Neville’s quiet once everyone else has had their turn smothering him. He chats happily enough with whoever speaks to him, an absentminded grin on his face for most of the evening. It’s when no one’s looking at him that he slows. His eyes are focused on a spot outside the Burrow, outside Devon. When he’s not eating, his hands fiddle with something under the table. When he stands, Luna can see that it’s a chewing gum wrapper.

He offers to help washing up, because of course he does, but Mr. Weasley shoos him out of the kitchen with ever more aggressive hand gestures and enlists George and Ginny instead. 

He looks forlorn, standing in the middle of the living room. He keeps crinkling the wrapper, flattening it out, crumpling it. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands.

Luna rests her hand over the tangle of his, just as he goes to straighten the wrapper out for the fifth time in thirty seconds. He jolts and it slips from his grip. He almost shoulders Luna’s chin as he lurches forward to grab it again, but he never did have good coordination, and it just flutters to the floor. 

The rest of the Weasleys carry on around them, the living room awash with laughter and chatter and the smell of hot chocolate, but it all seems to distort around their little bubble of quiet. Neville won’t move. His hands flex and clench and his eyes are fixed on the wrapper on the ground, but he won’t move to pick it up. 

Luna does it for him. The paper feels worn thin, fragile, like it might tear if she looks at it wrong. She takes Neville’s hand and digs her thumb into his palm, until he has no choice but to relax it, and places the wrapper in the centre. She curls his fingers back around it for good measure. 

“Should we ask Ginny if she’d like to go upstairs?” Luna asks, softly. Her thumbs smooth over his fingers.

He nods, eyes downcast and looking at his hand, like he could see what it holds if he looks hard enough. 

It’s surprisingly easy to pry Ginny from the clutches of the kitchen, but that might have something to with the fact Mr. Weasley has always had a soft spot for Neville, and the face Neville is making right now. Something terribly watery.

Ginny leads them up the stairs to her room and manhandles Neville into sitting on the bed. He won’t look up at them, hand still clenched right around the wrapper, until Ginny cups his face with two warm, freckled hands and beckons him up. 

Tears are trickling down his face. He’s trying desperately hard to pretend they aren’t; Luna can hear the way his breaths hitch as he sucks them in. 

“Neville,” Ginny murmurs, heartache lacing every letter of his name, and she sinks down to her knees in front of him, his face still cradled in her palms.

“They–“ his voice cracks horribly, “–Dad said.” He has to stop and force another wet breath, make sure it doesn’t come out a sob. Luna sits down on his right and wraps her arms as far around his shoulders as they’ll go. 

“Dad asked,” he starts, again after a moment filled only with his rasping breathing, “what such a. A handsome young man was, was doing visiting them,” he’s too choked up to keep going. Luna wipes away the tear tracks on his cheeks with her jumper just as even more spill over his eyes and cascade down to his chin. His mouth wobbles. Ginny pushes up onto her knees so she can press her forehead against his. 

“You know,” he tries again. “I’ve got so many of – of these fucking wrappers. She gives me them. Every time I go she gives me more.” He unfolds his fingers. The paper is riddled with white crease lines. “And every time, I always. Every time, I say, ‘thank you’, and, and I take them. Keep them.” He slumps against Luna, trusting her to keep them steady, and his head knocks against hers. “All of them.” 

Ginny pushes gently against his shoulders until his back hits the wall behind him, then clambers up onto the bed to sit beside the two of them. Luna brushes his hair back off his forehead; his eyes are bloodshot and red and he presses into her palm. 

“I don’t want them,” he says hoarsely. “I don’t. I’m sick of them. I can’t get rid of them.” He sobs now, great heaving gasps for breath that mangle his words, make them feeble, hiccuping cries. “I love them. I don’t want them.”

Ginny holds his head against her shoulder and kisses his forehead and Luna keeps stroking his skin, his hair. She clasps his hand in hers as he keeps weeping, and they keep him close while he falls apart.

* * *

The sun peaks over the horizon and the cold light of morning slants across the orchard. The Burrow bathes in it, casting a spindly ravine of shadow onto the ground to the west. 

The light leaks in through the window in Ginny’s room, spilling across her bed and illuminating the three bodies that inhabit it, sound asleep and tangled irrevocably together.

Three mugs of hot chocolate sit on the desk beside them, still steaming.


End file.
